


Midnight Sneaks

by windscryer



Series: Maja's Fluff VLD Week 2017 [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Caretaking, Exhaustion, Gen, Hunk and Lance being Big Brothers, Overworking, Pidge | Katie Holt Being a Little Shit, Platonic Relationships, Voltron Fluff Week 2017, midnight snacks, she's been cahooted!, sweets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 06:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10803381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windscryer/pseuds/windscryer
Summary: Hunk and Lance justhappento be awake when Pidge wanders into the kitchen at oh-dark-thirty. And they have delicious mousse and freshly whipped cream.If she weren't so tired, she'd have definitely caught onto their plot sooner.





	Midnight Sneaks

**Author's Note:**

> This is so late I'm not even sure it counts, but whatever. I did it and I'm posting it. It was meant to be for the Voltron Fluff Week Day 5: Sweets/Midnight Snacks.

Pidge rubbed at her eyes with her knuckles, pushing up her glasses to try and work the sleep and grit out of the corners. She should call it quits for tonight, but she couldn’t help feeling she was  _ so close _ to finding something about where the transport Matt and his rebel friends commandeered went after the sighting above Pintari 9.

If she just had any tiny hint of a direction to look, she could set up the search algorithm and go to sleep happy.

Yawning, she picked up her mug—and immediately knew it was empty. With an annoyed grunt she set it back down.

Five dobashes later she picked it back up and got it all the way to her mouth before she realized it was empty.

With a snarl she shoved away from her desk and stomped toward the door.

_ Perhaps you should sleep now, cub. The data will be there in the morning. _

Pidge snarled louder at the suggestion from Green. If she weren’t so cranky she’d feel bad about it—and in the morning she would probably apologize and try to make it up to her Lion—but right now she was frustrated and thirsty and her left eye was starting to throb something fierce from the brightness of her screens, even though she had them turned down as low as they could go and still let her see what was on it.

_That only proves my point_ , Green replied.

Pidge sent a mental image of her flipping up her middle finger, an Earth gesture she knew damn well Green understood. She got back a sigh.

_ Very well. I will begin searching the next data block, _ Green said. The resignation was undercut slightly by the hint of pride and the sensation of having a rough tongue dragged over her head with affection. Pidge reached up to fix her hair before she realized she was doing it. She scowled, but only got back amusement.

If she had been more awake, she might have been creeped out by the way her footsteps echoed in the hallways of the empty castle. She did idly wonder what it might have been like back in the day.

Had it ever been full of people or only a skeleton crew and the Paladins? It was the size of a decent skyscraper and her brief explorations had shown her there were living quarters and other facilities for far more than the seven of them.

Hunk had found no less than a half dozen kitchens scattered among the decks. They only used the one because it was close to the rooms Coran had assigned them—which were near the bridge for easy access.

Sometimes—especially in the early days before she’d told everyone she was a girl—she’d gone wandering and used bathrooms besides the one that was also near their quarters that they shared. She still did on occasion, but it took extra time that she preferred not to sacrifice for the most part these days.

She was itching to either map the castle out herself or find some blueprints or something, but she had too many other projects that were higher priorities.

Like finding out where Matt was. She had even fewer leads on her dad, but Matt might know something. And even if he didn’t, it would be easier if both of them were searching together.

Her jaw cracked on a yawn as she shuffled around the corner toward the kitchen, but when she unscrewed her eyes again she stopped cold.

Why was the light on? She checked her watch and frowned. It was halfway between midnight and ship’s dawn, everyone else should be asleep.

Hell,  _ she _ should be asleep.

One hand groped at her hip before she realized she wasn’t in her armor and therefore didn’t have her bayard on her. Okay, making some kind of holster to wear with her civvies just got bumped up the list.

Adjusting her grip on her mug—and hoping it didn’t come to that, this was the one Shiro had given her for her birthday and she didn’t want to break it already—she inched forward. She was careful to keep her feet angled the way Keith had shown her to make her footsteps nearly silent, but she hadn’t quite mastered it yet and her nose wrinkled at the soft sounds.

She paused just around the frame when she heard a quiet murmur of voices. She couldn’t pick out what they were saying through the adrenaline-induced buzzing in her ears, though.

Perhaps confronting an intruder on as little sleep as she’d gotten this week was a bad idea, but she hadn’t had enough sleep to really make that call either.

She inhaled deeply and then swung around, mug held high and a war cry on her lips.

“AY WHAT THE FUCK?!” Lance screamed as he toppled off the counter he’d been perched on. He rolled and came up on one knee, his hand twitching at his right hip.

Hunk spun around with a knife from the block in his hand, the other full of a large bowl he clutched to his chest, also yelling a war cry.

“Oh my god, Pidge, you scared the quiznak out of us!” he huffed, shoulders sagging when he realized it was her. He replaced the knife in the block and held out a hand to Lance.

Who took it and rose, then came stalking over to Pidge to poke her in the chest. It was less than intimidating, however, since he had his robe and his lion slippers and his overnight facemask on.

“You need to stop taking ninja lessons from Keith. You’re already hard to see, if I can’t hear you coming I’m definitely going to step on you one of these days.”

She glared at him as she gave serious consideration to using her mug anyway. “I thought there was an intruder! So sue me!”

Lance blinked and then exchanged a look with Hunk, who shrugged. He looked back to Pidge and shifted his weight to one side, waving a hand as he spoke.

“Hold up. You thought there was an intruder?”

She kept glaring. “Yes.”

“Here? In the Castle.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

“The one flying through space.”

She grit her teeth. “Yes.”

His lips curled into a smirk that made her fingers flex on the handle of her mug as he bent down to get on eye level with her.

“How did they get on board?”

Her left eye twitched and her teeth creaked from how hard she was grinding them together. She mentally apologized to Shiro and swung her mug up at that insufferably smug face.

“Whoa!” Hunk said, his hand catching her wrist as Lance jerked back in shock.

“What the quiznak?!”

“Yeah, no,” Hunk said, “you absolutely provoked that. I only stopped her because she’s going to regret breaking her mug when she’s had more sleep.”

“Hunk!” Lance cried, one hand pressing to his heart.

Hunk shot him a look that was half amused and half annoyed. “Go sit down or no mousse for you.”

Lance pouted, but shuffled off to the table, slumped in his chair, arms crossed over his chest.

It didn’t make Pidge want to smack him any less.

“Pidge, can I have this?” Hunk asked, bringing her gaze back around to him, his hand lightly holding her mug. “Here, I’ll trade you.” He pushed the bowl at her and she let go on reflex, grabbing it to her chest.

She frowned down at it, then dipped a finger into the fluffy white peaks. Swiping her tongue over the pad, her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Whipped cream?”

Hunk beamed. “Yeah, Coran and I finally figured out the right settings on the food goo for her, so Kaltenecker is now producing milk. Thankfully the Castle also has an automated milking… thing… because I don’t know how to do that.”

He deposited her mug in the Altean version of a dishwasher and Pidge frowned and went to go get it back out, but was distracted when he stepped out of the walk-in fridge with a tray of little cups of something so pink it made her eyes hurt just to look at it. He kicked the door shut and led the way over to the table, setting a cup and a spork at each of the three end places.

“Combined with the sweetener we got in that last farmer’s market place and we have the ingredients I was missing to try this.” He set aside the tray and waved at the table, still grinning.

She eyed it, then him, then Lance—who was trying to sneak a taste until Hunk reached over and smacked his hand away.

“Why are you making mousse at three in the morning?”

Hunk shrugged. “I didn’t. We’re just eating it now.”

She squinted, feeling like she was missing something in that explanation. Lance’s Totally Innocent Face #4 didn’t dispel that notion.

Her headache spiked again and she gave the dishwasher one last look before she admitted defeat. Adding more of the Altean stimulant drink to her system right now might result in her head exploding.

But she didn’t have to be gracious about it.

“Fine,” she said, moving over and thunking the bowl onto the table. Lance reached for it and she snarled and pulled it away.

He put his hands up and sat back.

She added a more than generous dollop of the cream to her cup and then shoved the bowl toward Hunk. While he dished it out for himself and Lance—“Come on, Pidge got twice that much!”—she dug into the dessert, keeping her eyes on the whipped cream lest she suffer permanent retinal burns from the mousse itself.

Tart, sweet flavor burst across her tongue and she might have squeaked in surprise. Probably did, given how Lance and Hunk were staring at her, sporks halfway to their own mouths.

She gave them both her best deadly glare and stuffed another mouthful in.

Of course Lance wasn’t much better when he tasted it, his eyes flying wide and his breath sucking in through his nose sharply.

Hunk was clearly prepared because he just sighed happily and rolled it around on his tongue.

“What flavor is this?” Lance asked as he scooped up a second bite.

“Coran called them cloryberries?” Hunk shrugged. “They were native to Altea, but exported to other planets and so they’ve survived all this time elsewhere. We got those at that farmer’s market too. I hope we can go back there. Or find more places like that.”

Pidge scraped out the last few bites from her cup and licked her spork thoroughly clean. “They taste like SweetTarts.”

“They do!” Lance said, eyeing his cup again. He abandoned his spork to use his finger to get a smear at the bottom.

“Yeah, I thought that was pretty neat,” Hunk admitted. “Still haven’t found anything like vanilla or chocolate, unfortunately.”

“I kind of hope you don’t?” Lance said, kicking up his feet as he continued to lick his cup clean.

He stopped when he saw Pidge and Hunk both staring at him.

“What? A. It would be cool to be the originating planet of chocolate, and B. we’re going to need  _ something _ to sell when we finally get Earth into, like, the wider universal culture. I mean, obviously we’re also going to be able to export things like awesome music and probably something nerdy like Apple computer stuff or whatever, but introducing the universe to an entirely new taste sensation? We might even accomplish peacefully what Zarkon couldn’t in ten thousand years of war: conquering the universe.”

Hunk huffed a laugh and Pidge snorted.

“Yeah, okay,” she said. She examined her cup with no small amount of sadness and then sighed. She really wanted to continue working, but even the thought of walking all the way back to her workshop was exhausting.

_ Your room is much closer. _

Pidge made a garbled sound of surprise and jerked in her chair, nearly falling out of it with the unexpected movement.

“You okay?” Lance said, as Hunk paused in his dish gathering to eye her warily.

She waved a hand and pushed to her feet. “Green,” she said by way of explanation.

Both of them nodded.

“Yeah, Blue scared me pretty badly when she woke me up.”

Hunk shook his head. “Yellow and I are in agreement that none of us should have gotten up in the first place, but if you’re going to be up you might as well be my guinea pigs.”

“I’d feel used, but being a guinea pig isn’t so bad if this is what it means,” Lance offered, holding up his cup. He did pout sadly at its empty state, though.

Pidge ran a hand through her hair, scratching at her scalp to try and wake herself up enough to make the walk to her room. “Woke you up,” she said. “Psh. Amateurs.”

Then she frowned. “Wait, why did Blue wake you up?”

Lance froze in the middle of stealing some whipped cream, then tried to play it casual again. It was as awful as the faux innocent face.

He shrugged and licked his finger clean. “She just wanted to tell me that I am the best Paladin she’s ever had.”

Pidge squinted.

Lance’s gaze slid to Hunk, who nodded after a second, then jerked his head to the side.

Before Pidge could work out what that meant beyond the two of them scheming together, Lance was on his feet and had rounded the corner of the table, bending and scooping up Pidge to throw her over his shoulder.

She did not yelp and clutch at him in her shock  _ at all. _

“Time for little pigeons to return to the coop.”

“Pigeons live in lofts, not coops!” she said, pounding a fist against his back. “Put me down!”

He snorted but didn’t stop, waving to Hunk as he loaded the dishwasher. “Of course you know that, you nerd. Well whatever they live in, that’s where you’re going. Night, Hunk.”

“Night, Lance. Pidge.” He was laughing, she could hear it, dammit. They were probably in league with Green and, oh, she was going to have her revenge on them all.

She tried to wiggle free as they turned the corner to the residential hall, but Lance tightened his grip. When she pushed upright and began shoving at his head, he just grabbed her wrists in one hand and swung her around so she lay across his shoulders like a lamb.

“Laaaaance!”

“Hush, Pidge,” he stage whispered, “people are sleeping.”

She growled, but couldn’t try too hard to free herself lest she fall and get hurt. She wasn’t nearly awake enough to catch herself or hit the ground and roll out of it.

She finally gave up as he arrived at her door, bending to take her hand and press it to the access panel. She didn’t cooperate, but she didn’t fight him either.

“You suck,” she grumbled.

“You’re not exactly a summer peach yourself right now, Green Goblin,” he said, slinging her around and dumping her on her bunk.

He crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “If I leave are you going to stay or do I have to sit on you until you fall asleep?”

She thought about telling him she’d stick her foot up his ass if he tried to sit on her, but she knew she wasn’t getting back up. She’d lost momentum and her bed was  _ really _ comfortable now that she was in it.

“I hate you,” she muttered.

He grinned and retreated to the door, blowing her a kiss. “Night, Pidge.”

She mimed catching the kiss and tearing it in half.

He pressed a hand to his heart again and staggered backward. “You wound me!” he said, but he also laughed as he stepped out, the door shutting behind him.

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, then sighed and wiggled out of her clothes, dumping them on the floor. Her glasses were set on the shelf above her head and she rubbed at her weary eyes one more time.

Pulling her blankets up—after untangling them a little—she shifted around until she found a sufficiently comfortable position.

Tomorrow she was going to kick Lance’s ass, she decided through a yawn. And Hunk’s. And she was going to find some way to kick the ass of a robot lion bigger than a skyscraper.

But especially Lance. She knew when they found Matt that the two of them were going to bond over torturing her and she was going to need all the practice she could get.

She fell asleep to the sound of her traitorous Lion chuckling in her head.


End file.
